


A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas

by oliviacirce



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:threeguesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviacirce/pseuds/oliviacirce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Christmas," Emerson says scornfully. "Only good thing about Christmas is the increase in murders."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Aria, Molly, Gigs, and Shannon for beta-reading and general last-minute encouragement, and thanks to Molly and, ah, Kristin Chenoweth for the title. Neither the characters nor the title belong to me.

The facts were these: it had been seven years, fifty-one weeks, six days, thirteen hours, and forty-eight minutes since Emerson Cod had last celebrated Christmas. Separated from his missing daughter, the detective preferred to spend the holidays alone, or, more accurately, pursuing the sorts of ne'er-do-well murderers and murderesses that chose to strike in the dark days between December twenty-third and January first. Money, Emerson Cod had found, was the best Christmas present he could give himself.

The Piemaker, however, perhaps under the influence of a Girl Called Chuck--though of course Chuck herself was Jewish, and celebrated Christmas only in the most secular of ways--kept the Pie Hole open despite the lack of customers. It was there, on the afternoon of December the twenty-forth, that Emerson Cod found himself, in company with those he thought of (when he thought of them charitably at all) as his friends.

\-----

"Rhubarb," Emerson says, without looking up from the newspaper spread out on the table and held down by three empty coffee mugs and a crumb-dusted plate. "A la mode. And coffee."

Olive fills all three mugs, and then sets the coffee pot down on top of the newspaper and slides into the other side of the booth. "What's cooking? And by cooking I don't mean _cooking_ cooking, because Ned's got that covered with the pie and the ovens."

Emerson looks up, scowling. "Where's my pie, woman?"

"We're out of Rhubarb." Olive hooks one finger through the handle of the middle mug and tugs it over. "Ned's obsessing about Mince and Peppermint Cream and Pumpkin and Plum Pudding."

" _Christmas_ ," Emerson says scornfully. "Only good thing about Christmas is the increase in murders."

"Nonsense," Chuck chirps, gliding by their table. "Christmas is cheerful and charming and glittery and glorious, like fresh fires in fireplaces and honey crusts on Apple-Spice pies." She's wearing a red wool dress, the hem and neckline trimmed with green velvet ribbon, and the same ribbon is threaded through her hair. "Look outside, it's already snowing."

Chuck's right: on the other side of the Pie Hole's porthole windows, the snow is falling in shimmering white flakes, dusting the street and buildings with a fine coating of powdered sugar. Olive is momentarily hypnotized.

"See, it has to be a good Christmas." Chuck picks up the coffee pot and drifts away in a vanilla-scented cloud of holiday spirit.

"Dead Girl's cheerful," Emerson observes.

"Disgustingly cheerful," Olive agrees, and sighs. "She and Ned have been extra-cozy chummy-chummy. I don't know what they _do_ if they're _allergic_ to each other--"

"Whoa, whoa," Emerson snaps, holding up both hands, "Stop right there. You have cleared the hurdle of things I do not want to think about and are rapidly approaching things that will make me walk right out that door and not come back until I've knitted a blanket big enough for the horse you ain't riding."

Olive sighs, again. "I never had a knitted blanket for my horse."

"Great," Emerson says, "I don't care. Can I get some damn pie? Strawberry, cherry, blueberry, anything as long as it's not damn _Christmas_ pie."

"Fine." Olive slides out of the booth and then whirls on Emerson, narrowing her eyes and waving a finger, menacingly. "But don't think you're off the hook, mister."

Emerson snorts, "Sure thing, gumdrop."

In the kitchen, Ned is rolling out a perfect, delicate layer of dough, his hands moving from memory while his eyes are fixed on Chuck. Chuck, across the table, chopping apples and nuts into tiny pieces for mincemeat, is barely attending to her knife. They're both smiling, too wide and too bright.

Olive sighs a different, Ned-induced sigh, and cuts Emerson a slice of Berry Blend. Ned and Chuck don't even glance at her, not when she walks past them to take the ice cream out of the freezer for Emerson's a la mode, not when she swipes the coffee pot back from under Chuck's elbow, and not when she cuts herself an extra-wide slice of Three Plum and leaves the kitchen, taking the coffee and pie back out to Emerson's booth.

"I need a distraction," she moans, propping both elbows on the table and dropping her head into her hands. "Please tell me you have a case. It's Christmas, somebody must be dead. _Lots_ of somebodies must be dead."

"Mmm," Emerson agrees, mouth full of his first bite of berries and ice cream. "Lots of somebodies _are_ dead." He shoves the coffee pot to one side and glances meaningfully at the paper spread out on the table.

Olive looks down, at the wide brown ring left by the coffee pot, and the obituaries it encircles. "You're reading obituaries? Don't you think that's a little morbid? I think that's a little morbid."

"You're the one who asked me if anyone was _dead_ ," Emerson says, "don't talk to me about morbid. And eat your damn pie." He gestures with his fork, his own plate already half-empty.

Olive eats her pie slowly, and attempts to read the obituaries upside down. She succeeds with the pie, but fails with the obituaries. "Are you reading obituaries because you have a case," she asks, finally, "Or because you don't?"

"Are you bothering me because Pie Boy and Pie Girl make your little heart sing," Emerson counters, "Or because they don't?"

"Don't," Olive shakes her head emphatically, "definitely don't. Don't make my heart sing at all, Emerson, make my heart _cry_ , and also they're going to screw up the mince pies with all their googly-eyed googly-eyed-ness. I _like_ mince pies."

"Leave the mince pies out of it for now," Emerson says, finishing off his own slice, "Piemaker can dig his own pie grave. You have a look at this here obituary, and tell me what you think." He taps one of the columns of text with the tines of his fork.

Olive gets up and joins Emerson on his side of the booth, where she can read the obituaries right side up. The obituary Emerson's fork indicates is short but sweet, like Olive herself: Merilee Merryweather, beloved helpmate and community cornerstone, lost to us forever--"Whoa, whoa," Olive says, "an unfortunate incident with an exploding Christmas cracker?"

"Mmm-hmm." Emerson sips his coffee.

"Sounds like foul play," Olive taps her fingers on the table, _one-two-three, one-two-three_ , "the foulest of plays, foul Christmas-murder play, foul--"

"Yeah, yeah," Emerson says dryly, "Foul play. So?"

"So if it was _murder_ ," Olive says, "And--hmm." Merilee Merryweather's obituary is in a larger and more flourishy font than most, and she is survived by her husband Martin, a banker. " _Money_ ," Olive breathes.

"Got it in one, Itty-Bitty." Emerson is almost smiling.

Olive can't help smiling back, Ned and Chuck entirely--if temporarily--forgotten. "Oh, Emerson," she says, "you _said_ , but--"

"I said," Emerson says, "that there's always a spot for you in this P.I.'s P.I. business, Itty-Bitty, and I meant it, so you just go get your coat, and we'll earn us the big bucks."

Olive, momentarily overcome, flings both arms around Emerson's neck, and kisses him on the check. His cheek is rough under her lips, and he smells like wool and coffee and Chinese food, and nothing at all like pie.

"Enough of that," he says, disentangling himself with surprising good grace. "Now get your coat."

Olive's smile widens into a grin, "On it." She slides back out of the booth, leaving the empty plates and mugs for Ned, and collects her coat from behind the counter.

"I'm going out with Emerson," she yells into the kitchen.

"Okay," Ned calls back, after a notable delay. "Merry Christmas!"

Olive snorts, almost actually amused, and turns away. Emerson is waiting by the door in his coat and hat, the newspaper tucked under one arm. Olive follows him out of the Pie Hole and flips the sign on the shop door to "Closed."

\-----

It had been five years, fifty-one weeks, six days, twelve hours, and twenty-three minutes (roughly as long as she had been spending the holidays with the Piemaker) since Olive Snook, despite her generally cheerful nature and inability to accept negative statements, had truly enjoyed Christmas. This year--she thought, as she walked though the falling snow arm in arm with Emerson Cod, in pursuit of justice, or money, or both--was looking up.

  



End file.
